Means to compress ingots



A. A. cLAAssEN' MEANS TO COMPRESS INGOI'S July 31,1923. 7 1,463,771

Filed April 17. 1922 7 w f a 7 J ALVIN A. CLAASSEN, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

IMEANS TO COMPRESS INGOTS. v

Application filed s in 17, 1922. Serial no. 553,694.

To all "whom it may concern:

Be it known that l, ALviN A. Cnimssniv, a citizen ol the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook, State of Illinois, having invented certain new and useliul Improvements in Means to Compress Ingots, do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, such as will enable others skilled in the art of making steel to n'actice the same.

In the manufacture of castings or ingots as the molten metal cools in the mold or jacket gas-pockets and internal shrinkage cavities and. pipes form in the upper portion of the solidifying mass, and also segregations of mate-rial occur as some of the constituents of the steel, such as carbon and certain impurities, tend to separate from the mass and gather toward the center or longiti idinal axis of the ingot as it cools. These factors untavorably alliect the properties oi the metal and develop imperfections in the product.

The object of my present invention is to provide new and improved means to reduce the formation of gas-spaces and pipes and the occurrence of these segregations, and it consists in simple and ei'licient devices of the character hereinafter pointed out for laterally bending or compressing the upper portions of the solidifying sides of the metal in the mold between its corners inwardly toward the center of the mass.

A i'actical embodiment of my invention is shown in the accompanyingdrawing, in which Fig. 1. is a top plan view of a mold equipped with compression bars on its sides between its corners; Fig. 2 is a longitudinal sectional view of the same on the line 2-2 in 1; Fig. 3 is a View similar to Fig. 2, but taken at a right angle thereto and with the keys of the compression bars removed and wedges in place in the mold; Fig. l is a detail cross-sectional view of one of the compression bars on the line l l in Fig. 2 and Fig. 5 shows a modification.

In the use of my invention the casting operation is carried out in the usual manner, and in the drawing the reference numeral 1 indicates the body of an ingot mold or jacket which is of usual size and configuration, and has the usual ears 2 at its upper end. The mold is provided with a plurality of compression bars 3 of cast steel, which are rectangular in shape, and are of sutlicient length to extend into the mold approximately to a depth oi about half its length,

and of suflicient width to cover approximately a third of the width of the inner faces oi the sides of the mold; the only tssential as to their width is that they leave a margin at ea h side so that the corners of the mold are not covered. The number of bars employed varies with the cross-sectional shape of the mold, that shown in the drawings being square and equipped with iour bars, one at the center oit each side as shown in Fig. 1. The bars are suitably supported on the mold so as to be movable inwardly toward its center. In the form shown each bar has its upperend shaped into ahook l to takeover the upper edge of the mold and longer than the thickness of the material of the mold so that theupper end of he bar is free to move inwardly, and the body of each bar is provided with a pair of spaced upper and lower pins 5 and 6, re-

spectively, constructed to extend outwardly through upper and lower slots 7 and 8, re-

spectively, in the sides of the mold, the up per pins and slots being positioned afew inches below the top end of the mold and the lower ones a few inches above the center of its longitudinal axis or length. The bars are held in position tight against the faces of the mold during the pouring of the metal and partial cooling of its outer portion by wedge-keys or gibs 9 passing through holes 10 in the outer portions of their pins. After the metal is tapped-oil into the mold-and its outer portion has cooled or solidified sulficiently to form a flexible crust or skin,the keys are released by partly or wholly withdrawing them from the pins, and the bars are moved inwardly to compress or bend the upper portions of the centers of the sides of gated open-top slots'or troughs '11 eXtending through their upper hooked ends and to a point near their lower ends, and preferably tapered from top to bottom in the crosssectional line of the adjacent wall, to receive correspondingly tapered wedges 12 which are constructed so that as they are driven into place between the bars and the face of the mold they will crowd or move the bars inwardly toward the center of the inget. The wedges are relatively thickened it between its corners toward its center.

toward their upperends; in practice they are about an inch and one-half thick at the top and gradually diminish to the bottom so that they move the barsinwardly with more or less of a pivotal motion on their lower feet 13 to increase the compression toward their upper ends.

By this arrangement the bars are initially held tight against the face of the mold so that no metal will pass behind them, and after the outer portion of the metal has solidified sufficiently to form a flexible crust, which usually occurs in ten minutes after it is poured the keys are released and the wedges are driven into place, and the compression barsare moved inwardly to compress or bend the upper parts of the ingot The condensation and pressure produced by this lateral inward bending or compression eliminates segregation and the formation of pipe and gas-holes and forces the CO gas up to the top of the ingot where it passes out. As the segregation, piping and gas-holes occur inthe upper portion of the ingots during their cooling or solidification in the molds, and increasingly toward their upper ends, the inward compression of the upper part of the ingot during its solidification in the moldis particularly effective in eliminat abutment above it; also of forcing the ingot upward into its tapered mold during solidification, and also of strippingthe ingot from its mold and running it on its car between a solid and a movable wall which latter isthen pressed against one side of the ingot, but practice has shown. that these methods do not either reduce or remove the known objections and disadvantages, and in some instances produce othersthat also are detrimental to the properties of the metal.

' By my invention these former objections of segregation, piping and gas-holes are practically eliminated, the castings are solid substantially throughout and the amount wasted by cropping is negligible, and the original composition and properties of the metal are not materially affected.

The mold may have recesses 14 in its inner faces for the bars 3 as shown in Fig. 5.

I claim:

1. An ingot mold, a plurality of compression bars constructed to extend into the upper end of the mold and to cover the central portions of its sides, releasable means to iold the bars tight against the sides of the mold, and wedges constructed to be driven between the mold and bars to move the bars inwardly toward the center of the mold when their holding-means are released.

2. An ingot mold having spaced upper and lower slots in its sides, a plurality of compression bars constructed to extend into the upper end of the mold and to cover the central portions of its sides, pins on the bars constructed to pass through said slots, keys constructed to removably engage the outer ends of the pins to hold the bars tight against the sides of the mold, and means to move the bars inwardly toward'the center of the mold when their keys are released.

3. An ingot mold having spaced upper and lower slots in their sides, a plurality of compression bars constructed to extend into the upper end ofthe mold and to cover the central portions of its sides, pins on the bars constructed to pass through slots, keys constructed to removably engage the outer ends of the pins to hold the bars tight against the sides of the mold, and wedges constructed to be driven between the mold and bars to move the later inwardly toward the center of the mold when their keys are released.

a. An ingot mold having spaced upper and lower slots in its sides, a plurality of compression bars constructed to extend into the upper end of the mold and to cover the central portions of its sides, each bar having an open-top slotextending from its top to near its lower end, pins on the bars constructed to pass through the slots of the mold, keys constructed to removably engage the pins to hold the bars tight against the sides of the mold, and wedgesconstructed to enter the slots in the bars and move the latter inwardly toward the center of the mold when their keys are released.

In testimony whereof I hereto affix my signature. I

ALVIN A. GLAAS-SEN. 

